


Can't Stop Laughing

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-09
Updated: 2009-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Can't Stop Laughing

They get assigned to lead discussion together in English, because they both put off volunteering for the whole semester and Mr. Snider wants everyone to have their credit for that before they start studying for the final. They put it off so long the poetry unit is over, and Poe, and even Shakespeare; they get stuck with the really weird shit. Fucking _The Sound and the Fury_.

"We need six discussion questions and a brief written analysis," Pete reads off the syllabus, then lets it fall to the floor. "Okay. Question one: how bad does Quentin want to fuck his sister?"

"Good one." Gabe thinks for a minute. "Hey, if we just ask that we'll probably get kicked out of class and not even have to do the rest of it."

"How bad does he want to _bone_ his sister," Pete amends, then makes a face and slouches down lower in his chair. They're in the back corner of the library, and there's maybe half an hour before the librarian will want to go home and they'll need to get out. Half an hour for six questions--well, five; they can make the Quentin one work somehow--and a brief written analysis. Sure.

"Question two," Pete says after a minute. "How many people got anything out of the first section at all, I mean, seriously."

"Benjy, man." Gabe shakes his head and watches the way Pete's sweatshirt rides up just a little and exposes a smooth line of skin. "Fucked up."

"Yeah, but it's confusing." Pete frowns at the book and then at Gabe. "I don't know. You want to do the analysis and I'll do the questions? And then we'll just have to figure out how we're going to present it, or whatever."

"Yeah." Gabe nods, relieved; he can totally bullshit an analysis, especially since it's not supposed to be more than a page long. "We can just walk to my house tomorrow after class and figure it out. Practice it once or twice."

Pete grins suddenly, all crooked and bright. "Remember when we were, like, nine and you had your birthday party at your house? With the clown and shit."

Gabe grins back, because yeah, he remembers. That was a fucking awesome party. He was the king of the third grade.

He and Pete were friends back then, in elementary school when everyone was friends. They'd been on the same soccer team in middle school, and since then...they hadn't talked much, for some reason. That was fucked up, too. Why had that happened?

"Your mom made all that food. It was sweet." Pete's grinning still, and tapping his pencil on the table in a fast staccato rhythm that makes Gabe nod his head not-quite in time. "Man, back in the day, right?"

Gabe looks at him, Pete in his eyeliner and his black-painted nails and his oversized hoodie that makes him look about elf-sized. When they were nine, they had wandered off in the middle of the party and he pushed Pete up against the wall and kissed him in one of those random sudden things kids do.

Pete had laughed at him and run away to demand a balloon animal from the clown.

He thinks that tomorrow afternoon at his house he's going to try that again. He wonders what Pete will do this time.  
**  
Pete's lying on his back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and waving his hands in the air and talking about how the problem isn't that Quentin killed himself, it's that he did it for a really stupid reason.

Gabe's not really listening. He's watching Pete's hands, and his mouth, and that strip of skin where his shirt is hitched up. He's pretty sure Pete must _plan_ that strip of skin, because it's a little too perfect every time.

"...I mean, if he had _actually fucked her_ , that would be different, but he's just feeling guilty for shit he didn't even _do_ anything about."

"Uh-huh." Gabe nods and puts his notebook down, moving over to sit next to Pete's head. "You're really serious about this whole incest thing."

"Caddy's the only one of them who even _tried_."

"She was a slut, dude."

"No, she just was trying to have a life." Pete blinks up at him, upside-down and backwards. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

That's the kind of invitation that only comes around once in life. Gabe believes in seizing opportunities.

It turns out that upside-down kisses are better in theory than in practice; their teeth keep knocking together and he ends up being all clumsy and sloppy with his tongue because the angle's wrong. Pete blinks at him again after he pulls back, and Gabe braces himself for some hardcore mocking.

"Hey," Pete says. It's more like a _hi_ than a _what the hell_ , so Gabe licks his lips and answers.

"Hey."

"What was that for?"

Gabe shrugs. "I wanted to."

Pete thinks about that for a minute, looking down, then grins and sits up. "Awesome."

And then Gabe has a lapful of Wentz, kissing him from a way better angle with absolutely no clumsiness at all, and _The Sound and the Fury_ is still seriously weird shit but he is fucking _dedicated_ to this assignment from now on.  
**  
Dedication comes in second to the fact that they do in fact ask their classmates to discuss how much Quentin wants to bone his sister, and they get a C on the assignment. It's cool, though, because Gabe has a boyfriend for the end of his junior year.

He's not sure if everyone would consider Pete a particularly good boyfriend; he flirts with everything that moves, he tends to ignore Gabe in favor of anything bright, shiny, or distracting, and he is kind of amazingly self-centered. All of those things apply to Gabe, too, though, and it's not like there's some objective boyfriend standard out there somewhere, so he's good with it. Really, really good.

They're both spending the summer mostly doing jack shit, working part-time at minimum-wage jobs that appease their parents and leave the evenings free for partying. There's a whole string of kind of perfect nights, spread out over the summer, all full of music and laughter and doing stupid shit and then stumbling off somewhere semi-private with Pete's mouth hot against his, tasting like beer and smoke and Pete's stupid Chapstick.

His hands fit just about right around Pete's hips, and the height difference between them comes in handy for pushing Pete up against the wall when he wants to get his attention. He can push him back and hold him still and kiss the hell out of him, and Pete tangles his legs with Gabe's and slides his hands down to Gabe's ass and hooks his thumbs in Gabe's belt loops and yeah, it's a pretty fucking awesome summer.  
**  
"Wait," Pete says. He's squirming a little under Gabe's body and Gabe braces himself on his hands to give him a little more room. They're both sweaty and worked up, and Gabe's got his hand down undoing Pete's jeans, so he figures Pete must just want to catch his breath, not for Gabe to actually _stop_.

But Pete pushes at him again, shaking his head and licking his lips. Gabe pulls back slowly, confused, wondering what the hell he did because it's not like they don't do this _all the time_.

"What do you want to do?" Pete asks in this low, funny voice, propping himself up on his elbows. Gabe blinks at him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and trying to figure out exactly where the train jumped the tracks, here.

"I thought that was pretty obvious," he says finally.

Pete turns kind of red and shrugs, looking down at his hard-on jutting out of his half-open jeans. "I just meant, like, what _specifically_."

Gabe takes a deep breath and sits back a little farther. This is fucking killing anything resembling the mood. "I don't know, I guess I was going to jerk you off a little and then maybe blow you? Like usual. I mean, I thought you liked that."

"Don't be stupid, of course I like it." Pete gives him a dirty look and Gabe bites back a sharp _then what the hell, Pete?_ "I just wondered if, maybe, we could try something else."

"Something else?"

Pete crawls over to the bed and pulls a bag out from underneath, then rummages through that until he finds a pop-cap tube of KY. Gabe's stomach does a weird twisting flip thing and he's kind of glad Pete isn't anywhere close to making eye contact because he's pretty sure he couldn't manage it right now.

"You...you want to..." He swallows and silently wills his voice not to squeak. "You want me to fuck you?"

"Maybe not that, yet." Pete's talking directly to the lube, not even looking _up_ , much less at Gabe. "But you could, you know, use your fingers. If you wanted. Or not, if you don't want to. That's cool. I mean...it was just an idea."

Gabe stares at him for a minute and then crawls over to him, settling his hand on Pete's chest and leaning in to kiss him again. Pete doesn't kiss back at first, doesn't even part his lips, but when Gabe pushes a little he goes with it, eases back down to the floor and takes a deep, shaky breath as Gabe settles over him again.

Gabe finishes getting Pete's jeans open and shoves them down with his boxers, then glances up at Pete's face. Pete's still flushed and looks uncomfortable, biting his lips and averting his eyes. Gabe kind of likes the people he's fooling around with to look a little more enthusiastic than that. Call him crazy.

He ducks his head and licks Pete's cock slowly, figuring that he'll get Pete good and distracted before he tries anything new and a blowjob is pretty much the most distracting thing he can think of.

"Gabe," Pete says, like he's half-asking for something, and Gabe takes him deep in his mouth, closing his eyes and concentrating on the slide of skin against his lips and tongue. "Jesus."

Gabe keeps sucking him, going slow and steady, waiting for the low sounds Pete makes to get a little closer to desperate before he flips the cap open on the KY with his free hand. He slicks up his fingers and then hesitates, half-pulling off of Pete, suddenly realizing he doesn't know how the hell this part works.

"It's okay," Pete says, his voice rough and breathless. "It's...it's okay, just...God, do _something_ , please."

Gabe feels his own face heating up, because he doesn't _know_ what the fuck to do, and this wasn't fucking fair, Pete blindsiding him like this. Before he can do anything, though, Pete's hand finds his, catching his wrist and guiding his hand up, like he knows what he wants.

He goes with it, lets Pete move him until he’s pressing two fingers against Pete and then inside, slowly, and Pete gasps, tensing around him. "Fuck," he breathes, "oh, Gabe, fuck," but it doesn't sound anything like _stop_ so Gabe keeps going, taking Pete's dick in his mouth again while he pushes his fingers deeper, because if one thing's good, both must be better, right?

"Fuck," Pete says again, his voice thick and rough. He's still holding Gabe's wrist, and he starts guiding Gabe's hand again, cueing him to start shallow little thrusts with his fingers in a rhythm with Pete thrusting up into his mouth. He's fucking himself on Gabe's hand, and when _that_ realization clicks into place Gabe chokes a little, mouth tightening around Pete's cock, and almost comes in his jeans on the spot.

"Don't _stop_ ," Pete groans, and Gabe almost starts laughing. But he's not a complete dick, so he sucks on Pete some more instead, pushing his fingers deeper, until Pete's fingers grip his wrist hard and his hips buck up as he comes.

Gabe swallows and eases his hand away slowly, shivering at the little noise Pete makes. "Okay?" he asks, suddenly uncertain.

Pete nods, looking at him with an expression Gabe can't quite read. "Yeah," he says, "yeah, I'm..."

"Cool," Gabe interrupts him, moving to undo his own jeans. "Then do you think you can maybe..."

Pete blinks at him and then laughs and nods, sitting up and pushing Gabe down on his back on the floor. "Right, right," he says, "I should've guessed," and then he's sliding down and taking Gabe in his mouth and fuck, goddamn it, Gabe's life is pretty much _awesome_ , right now.  
**  
Later, after Gabe's washed his hands and they're dressed again and at least pretending to be talking about something else, Pete suddenly stops and looks at Gabe and says "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For...doing that. Trying that with me. I wasn't sure you'd want to." Pete's digging around in the bag of Doritos like there's a prize hidden down there, his face averted and his shoulders all tense. Gabe watches him for a minute and thinks, about what Pete said and what he's not saying. It makes sense. All of the other stuff they do, no matter how many times they've done it, they can kind of sort of brush off as just fooling around. This, though, this is getting close to capital-S sex, and even they both know that's a dumb way to divide things up, some stuff is hard to get out of your head.

But it's a _really_ dumb division. It's bullshit, in fact.

"I liked it," he says, reaching over and taking the Doritos. Taking them makes Pete look at him. "You should...you should ask me for things. When you want them. I'll probably say yes. I mean, unless it's, like, totally freaky shit." He pauses and swallows, then shrugs. "I like making you happy."

Pete starts to smile and that just proves it, all over again. Fuck, he _likes_ knowing that Pete's smiling because of him. It's a little scary, at the same time that it's awesome, because it's another bullshit way he's been dividing things up and he has to admit it. He's been pretending there's a difference between being friends who fool around--have sex--whatever, and...other stuff. Stuff that fits into a whole different category with _relationship_ and _like you a lot_ and maybe even _love_ or whatever. Stuff he doesn't want to look at, but maybe Pete's going to make him.

"You should ask me for stuff, too," Pete says. Gabe nods slightly and stuffs his mouth full of Doritos. He really can only handle one thing at a time.  
**  
School starts up again and they both kind of expect it to be a lot weirder than it is. Some people give them shit, but they're the same people who gave them shit anyway for whatever random reasons they could come up with, and both Pete and Gabe are complete experts at not giving a shit what other people think of them, or at least pretending they don't.

Ms. Ellerbe makes them sit on opposite sides of the room in calculus after she sees them holding hands in the hall, and Pete talks about taking that to GLAAD or something and making a fuss, but Gabe points out that then they'll _definitely_ both flunk the class and anyway, if that's the worst thing that happens then they're both coming out way ahead.

It's not all good, of course; nothing's ever all good. Pete gets in these moods, sometimes, these fucked-up _bad_ moods that sometimes send him off to brood by himself and sometimes make him pick fights, with Gabe and their other friends and teachers and pretty much anybody who crosses his path. Gabe doesn't know what the fuck to do with those. There's not a whole lot he _can_ do, and that gets cut down more when he has to narrow it to the stuff that Pete will _let_ him do. A lot of the time that leaves him back at square _absolutely nothing_ and that's frustrating and infuriating at once, so bad he just wants to grab Pete and shake him until he snaps out of it.

He tells Pete that once and gets a smartass response about not being into that kind of kink. He's pretty sure that's bullshit because once or twice he's accidentally gotten kind of rough and Pete sure as hell _seemed_ to be enjoying it, but when he points that out Pete tells him domestic violence is a crime and takes off to talk to someone else. Figuring Pete out is a job for a team of fully-trained psychologists, Gabe suspects, not for him. And yet he can't seem to stop trying.

Sometimes Pete does let him help. Gabe has to be careful not to fuck it up, when it happens, because it's rare and special and weird. But it's also kind of scary, more or less depending on what's going on in Pete's head.

Like one time, he goes over to Pete's house and Pete's lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling with that look on his face that said it was a pretty fucking bad day and it probably wasn't going to get much better. Gabe sits down on the foot of the bed with Pete's copy of _Equus_ \--they weren't in the same English class this year, but every class used the same syllabus--and tries to catch up to where he was supposed to be. He's been following the discussion in class and he knows what's going on, but actually reading the book is too boring to bother.

"You haven't finished that yet?" Pete asks, his voice thick and rough. Gabe looks back over his shoulder at him and sees that his eyes are half-open, his arms folded over his chest hugging himself tight. Maybe Pete's just tired, or maybe he should treat him like he is.

"It's fucked-up," he says, shrugging and waving the book at him. "I mean, seriously? If you've got sex and religion and fucking _horses_ mixed up in your head, dude, you need to...like, take a break, or something."

Pete shrugs. "I guess."

"And I still don't get why he blinded those horses." Gabe looks down at the book, rubbing his thumb over the cover. "I mean, I know _why_ , they tell you why, but I don't _get_ it."

"They saw too much." Pete's voice is low and subdued, barely above a mumble, and Gabe looks at him again with a frown. Pete looks like he's about to cry. "Sometimes you just can't fucking stand things that _see_ too much."

"Dude," Gabe says softly, dropping the book on the floor and crawling up the length of the bed. "Hey." He lies down next to Pete, not grabbing him or holding him or anything, just putting his head on Pete's shoulder and throwing his arm across Pete's waist. "Hey. C'mon, dude, it's okay."

"I know." Pete shakes his head, not looking at him. "I know, I know."

They lie there for a while, and Gabe can't stand this, not knowing what to do or say. He rubs at Pete's stomach carefully, trying to get him to open his eyes. "You want to go smoke up?" he asks finally, hopefully. "I've got stuff at home."

Pete smiles a little and shakes his head, bumping his shoulder against Gabe's chest. "No thanks, but I appreciate the offer."

"You want to do something else?"

Pete shakes his head again and looks sideways at him. "You can go home if you want. You don't have to stick around just to watch me sit here."

"I'm good." Gabe tightens his arm a little around Pete's waist, just enough to make the point that he's not damn well going anywhere. "It's cool."

Then they're both quiet, for kind of a long time; Gabe watches the numbers tick over on the clock on the bedside table, and slowly brings his breath down to the same rhythm as Pete's. It's kind of hypnotizing, and he almost falls asleep.

"You know something?" Pete says, and Gabe jerks a little, starting back awake. Pete sounds exhausted, and _sad_ , and Gabe just wishes he fucking knew _why_.

"What?" he asks, rubbing his cheek on Pete's shoulder.

"I've got, like. In the drawer here. I've got this bag, right? I just collect pills, or whatever, in it. Sleeping pills and Xanax and I think there's some painkillers in there. Leftovers, you know? I keep the leftovers." He exhales slowly, shaking Gabe's arm against his chest. "I could take all of them and that would just be it, you know? Bam. Lights out."

They're not breathing in rhythm anymore. Gabe takes a minute to try to catch up before he speaks. "I think maybe you shouldn't do that, dude."

"I know. I probably won't. I mean, what if you change your mind and it's too late? That would suck. Or you fuck it up and end up just brain-dead forever. Like a zombie." He's quiet another minute and then he edges closer to Gabe, pressing up against him. "I just like to know I've got the option, I guess."

Gabe hugs him a little tighter, and breathes against his neck. He doesn't know what the fuck to say. Finally he settles on "Just don't tell me you're having sex dreams about horses, okay?"

Pete laughs and elbows him in the stomach. "You're sick," he says, and he turns over so they're facing each other. He kisses Gabe, slow and warm and deep and Gabe closes his eyes and just goes with it, pretends all that shit was never said, it's all cool, it's all right.  
**  
They're still together at Christmas, or, as Gabe points out pretty loudly, fucking _Hanukkah_ , way to miss that entirely and assume everybody's into Jesus, Pete.

Gabe's never had a significant other of either gender at any winter holiday, so it's weird. And he's pretty close to broke. He gets them tickets to a show in town, not their top tier of favorite bands but definitely in the second or third. Not any lower than that.

Pete says " _Awesome_ " and generally acts like it's a lot better present than it is. Gabe understands why when he opens the gift Pete gives him and it's a fucking hat.

"Whoa. A hat?" He holds it up and turns it back and forth. It's knitted. And fur-edged. And has earflaps, with strings to tie under his chin. "That's...pretty crazy, Pete. I mean, it's cool! It's a hat."

Pete's sitting there grinning at him, even while he's making an ass of himself. Actually, probably _because_ he's making an ass of himself. "I go through your stuff while you're in the bathroom, dude," he says, kicking his feet against the bed. "I know you're going to college in New Jersey. It gets cold there. You'll need a hat."

That's a subject that they've both avoided talking about at all. Gabe doesn't really want to talk about it now, either, so he grips the hat tight and nods. "It's awesome. Thank you."

"I made you a mix CD, too. But it kind of sucks." He pulls that out from under his hoodie and hands it over.

Gabe turns it over in his hands and looks at it. Pete made a cover insert for the jewel case. There's a complicated drawing on the front, and tiny cramped writing inside. One line's written in green ink, and his eyes zero right in on it.

 _thanks for putting up with me. your too tall and you should stop that, but it's been so good._

And then further down, in blue.

 _if we make it all the way to graduation, i'll let you feel me up under the gown._

And at the bottom, in red.

 _thanks for all of it. being cool. you._

"We can listen to it on the way to the show," Pete says, his voice totally calm like none of this is any kind of a big deal.

"Yeah," Gabe says, and if he doesn't manage the trick with his own voice quite as well, neither of them is going to mention it. "We can."


End file.
